000 01965cam a2200217 4500500
005 20250125173007.0
041 _afre
042 _adc
100 1 0 _aAlamichel, Marie-Françoise
_eauthor
245 0 0 _aWod et wude dans la littérature médiévale anglaise ou l'espace de la folie
260 _c2007.
500 _a52
520 _aWod and wude in medieval English literature or the geography of Madness. Lunatics are not familiar figures in English medieval works. In particular, they hardly play any role in Old English literature. (...) Before the introduction of romance, in the 12th century, the few examples of lunatics are Biblical heroes or those considered as possessed by the Devil (sick people, sinners, or pagans). On the other hand, Lives of Saints present men and women madly in love with God, hermits withdrawn into deserts, and fascinating mystics while in epics madness is associated with anger: infuriated warriors fight on the battlefield. In the 14th and 15th centuries, with romance now a well-established genre, knights are often shown as temporarily unsound. Mental disorder is then a (necessary?) stage in their inner development: deeply bewildered, they separate themselves from society and find refuge in the forest; in romances, the madman is a wild man. Quite different is the urban fool, the court jester, whose (pretended) madness reveals concealed wisdom. The king’s fool appeared in medieval works but had his hour of glory, later on, in Elizabethan drama. Lunatics, fools, all those beside themselves, though not totally absent from English medieval texts, remain, throughout the period, in the background.
690 _aFools
690 _asickness
690 _aEnglish Literature
690 _aOld & Middle
690 _aMadness
786 0 _nLe Moyen Age | CXIII | 2 | 2007-08-23 | p. 361-382 | 0027-2841
856 4 1 _uhttps://shs.cairn.info/revue-le-moyen-age-2007-2-page-361?lang=fr&redirect-ssocas=7080
999 _c1032863
_d1032863